"Love Happens When Looking for a Love Potion"

Zoe Archer has come up with a perfectly beautiful recipe for romance pitting together a lady botanist struggling for scientific recognition in a mans world and a mountebank looking for a recipe for love in her latest English Historical novel of LOVE IN A BOTTLE.

Sophie Andrews was a lady with passion; a passion for crawling in the dirt amongst all manner of roots, and fungus. While crawling to get a better look at a rare mushroom she finds instead a shiny pair of books encased in muscular legs, impressive thighs -- all in all a very nice package topped off with a charming grin on his face. Feeling a comfortable amity with the handsome stranger Sophie would later be dismayed to discover he was a mountebank capable of swindling the unsuspecting town folk for which Sophie promptly called him out for being a fraud.

Setting out for home and never expecting to see Ian again, Sophie had her coach stop to pick up another specimen in the woods. Ian saved from her being kidnapped by hooligans by stopping her from rushing to the rescue of her uncle Alford after observing him being accosted by the notorious highwayman Dark Dan McGannon. Joining forces with Ian, Sophie and he were later able to rescue her uncle not realizing their partnership was destined to continue. Ian had almost convinced himself that love was nothing but a chemically balanced love potion he'd yet to discover, leaving him baffled by the thrill he found from Sophie's touch. He also couldn't deny the feelings his heart was telling him wouldn't be found in a bottle, but only in his dear little botanist's arms.

*** This was a lovely story with characters the reader will find to be charming. For the period, in a class distinctive atmosphere, the author pits two unlikely protagonists together with amazing depth. Ian, a handsome hero fashioned as a common peddler who could never be found acceptable for the daughter of a squire, even though said daughter, Sophie, was a bit unconventional herself. Ian was convinced he was incapable of falling in love hence his search for the perfect chemically induced herb that would miraculously allow him to fall in love. Until a passionate kiss from Ian, Sophie's only passion was found in her botany studies.

The author was able to strike a perfect balance in her characterizations of secondary characters giving good depth and perfect motivations of their actions for Sophie's mother Caroline, her indulgent Uncle Alford, and her groveling suitor Lord Charles Vickerton.

It was delightful to see the love grow between the two protagonists as they first developed a friendship, were able to open up while respecting each other's individuality before they actually discovered themselves in love. This was an endearing love story and it proves to romance readers that Ms. Archer is a new talent that bears careful consideration for future book buying.

Marilyn Rondeau, RIO - Reviewers International Organization

Reviewed by Marilyn Rondeau
Posted February 21, 2007

Summary

It is the most beautiful fungus botanist Sophie Andrews has ever seen. And the man who comes with it is a pretty fine specimen, too. Sophie knows the bottle of love potion the roguish peddler tries to push on her is a hoax, but she has no time to argue.

Ian Blackpool refuses to let the stubborn beauty who stumbled into his path track down the notorious Dark Dan McGannon alone. It is his duty to help. Surely it has nothing to do with the thrill he feels at her touch. After all, love is merely a specific chemical combination. But when Ian took Sophie in his arms, science went out the window...